Reader Story: Saving the American Way…and the Bulgarian Way

This guest post from Rya is part of the “reader stories” feature at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success — or failure. These stories feature folks from all levels of financial maturity and with all sorts of incomes. Rya writes a Bulgarian personal-finance blog called kadebg.com.

My name is Rya. I’m 25 years old, and I live in Bulgaria. That’s a small country in Eastern Europe, right next to Turkey, Romania, Greece, and Serbia.

In May 2009, I took a loan to start my own business, which eventually failed. By the end of 2009, I was left with €2500 in debt. (For reference, the average salary in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, is €500 per month. That’s roughly $700.) After my business failed, I got a job that paid €350 a month, while my living expenses were €200 a month at the very least. I couldn’t squeeze them any lower than that.

So I was left with €2500 in debt, and I could only put €150 a month towards it. And that was if I lived like a monk: eating simple food, wearing modest clothes, cutting off all entertainment.

Then in January 2010, a family emergency called me home. I left Sofia and my job for my small hometown with 40,000 population.

Not a Sob Story
In the beginning of 2010, things got tough. I had:

A failed business

€2500 in debt

A family crisis

A break-up with my boyfriend (due to said crisis)

Major life-change (from Sofia to my small hometown)

No job

During times like these, you take comfort where you find it — an overpriced latté or a sinful pack of smokes. But suddenly €2 ($3) for a pack is more than you can afford. Think you can’t live without internet in the 21st century? Please! — that’s the easy part. Chips, chocolate, soda — scratch’em off the menu. Your new menu is potatoes, eggs, and tap water.

But this isn’t a sob story; rather, it’s a “before and after” story.

Before this, I never really managed my money. I just tried not to spend too much on certain things, and it worked. I’d broken even for the month — nothing left for savings, but no debt either.

After this, I started looking for information about personal finance. I found The Simple Dollar and Get Rich Slowly, which prompted me to start me own blog (in Bulgarian): kadebg.com. And I began to read a lot about saving since it’s a major topic in personal finance.

“I Can’t Afford to Save”
“I can’t afford to save. There’s just no money left at the end of the month.” That’s what I heard quite a bit from friends and family. That’s what I used to say.

So when I first spoke about savings on my blog, some people felt it was almost insulting. Was I out of my mind? What was I saying? I had dared tell people an ugly truth — save now or starve always — and they didn’t like it.

But what really got to me was when I started hearing: “Bulgaria isn’t a rich country like the USA or Western Europe. It’s easy for them to save; they don’t spend 50% of their income on food.”

There’s some truth in that. Americans can afford a home mortgage, a car loan, and student loans totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars and still live in a well-furnished home while not worry about food or bills. Americans can say things like, “I save 20% of my income” and still eat healthfully, buy clothes, and make the payment on that SUV. That’s hardly possible here!

For the majority people in Bulgaria, saving doesn’t come easily. It usually means cutting back on basic things like food, clothes, and transportation. It takes a big effort. My aunt’s family of three lives on less than €500 a month in Sofia — luckily, they have their own three-bedroom apartment, so they have no rent or mortgage.

So, how do you save when you can barely make ends meet?

“I Can’t Afford NOT to Save”
I thought about this a lot. How different it is to save between these two scenarios? First, when you make more than you need for simple survival? And second, when you barely make enough for survival needs?

But tough or not, you have to do it. Otherwise, there’s no way out. You’ll never get to financial independence, and you surely won’t get rich.

I wasted a lot of time being angry at the circumstances and being angry at how hard it is to save. I wanted things to be different so badly! I was only 24 — it wasn’t fair!

But wishful thinking got me nowhere. I was acting like a child, not like a young adult. Taking the loan for my business was my decision. “Suck it up, Rya,” I told myself. ” Get on with your life!”

Lesson Learned
As I mentioned at the start, I now have my own blog about personal finance. Saving is one issues I talk about most. I’ve become a big advocate of saving, but I constantly get comments (sometimes really charged!) about:

How it’s hard to save

How people would gladly save if they made more money

How it’s stupid to save when you should enjoy your youth

How it’s humiliating to save and count your pennies (“stotinki” here)

How there’s just not enough money to save

I recognize my old self in these comments. I used to be just like that. I would speak to someone with better financial sense than me, and they’d generously tell me what I needed to do. But I didn’t like it. It sounded like too much work. It sounded like change. It sounded like less fun.

But in the end, I was forced to learn the hard way that they were right. I had to hit rock bottom before I woke up from my no-money-management coma. It was painful, but it worked. I just repaid my debt after a year’s struggle. I kept reading personal-finance blogs to keep me on the right track until the finish line, and I now have the Financial Freedom Medal. It feels great!

So, I urge people to do whatever is necessary to find ways to save. And when they say “I can’t afford to save”, I don’t buy it anymore.

Not Buying It
If I can do it, so can you. Sure, it’s uncomfortable. Sure, it’s tough at times. It takes sacrifice! But I’m a 25-year old woman. If I can get by without fancy clothes, make-up, and entertainment at my age, you can too. What I’ve learned is that there’s a huge difference between “I can’t” and “I don’t want to”.

During 2010, I spent a total of €40 on shoes and clothes — buying second-hand or cheaply-made Chinese stuff. I didn’t buy Dove soap for €1 ($1.40); I got ten no-brand bars for the same price. My cell-phone is a several-years-old Nokia with a VGA camera. I couldn’t afford a gym card, so I trained at home or ran outside. I’ve finally realized: Being frugal isn’t the end of the world.

I’ve also learned — through reading blog posts and comments — that not all Americans have it easy. I’ve read some strong personal stories from Americans who seemed to be in even worse situations than mine:

A single father lost his job and barely had any food for his young child.

A retired woman shared tips on how to keep a house cool in the summer using blankets and reflectors to cover the windows — she couldn’t afford air conditioning.

I read stories about moms stretching $5 to feed a six-year-old and a baby for several days.

Sure, the U.S. economy is stronger than ours in Bulgaria. Sure, Americans generally live better than Bulgarians. But when you have a major crisis in your personal finances, it doesn’t really help that much if your countrymen have a high standard of living. They won’t come and swoosh you out of the quicksand. Their full wallets won’t fill yours. You’re on your own, American or Bulgarian.

So, are you telling me you can’t afford to save? Save! I don’t buy it anymore.

Reminder: This is a story from one of your fellow readers. Please be nice. After more than a decade of blogging, I have a thick skin, but it can be scary to put your story out in public for the first time. Remember that this guest author isn’t a professional writer, and is just learning about money like you are. Henceforth, unduly nasty comments on readers stories will be removed or edited.

“You’re on your own, American or Bulgarian.” – absolutely true. While it’s nice to know that friends and family *might* back you up in a crisis, it’s not something anyone should ever count on. It’s a good (if rather stark) philosophy to assume that nobody’s going to care if you end up penniless and starving, so you might as well take steps to avoid that fate.

Excellent story! Thank you for sharing. I love that you say-if I can do this so can you-its so true. Because you did it, you know its hard, but possible. I’ve done it too, so I hate to hear “I can’t do this”. Yes you can. Its a choice…congratulations on your success.

I always thought countries other than US had easier time saving money, since they didn’t have a spending culture. Sometimes I forget that some people can barely support there basic living requirement.
Great article, thanks.

It is very true for most of us in America. We can look at almost anyone else who says they can’t save and find ways that they could if they really wanted to. But, wanting to is the hard part! We are struggling financially and every time I look at my husband lighting up a cigarette I want to scream, not to mention his takeout food habit.

Oh, your husband sounds just like my Dad. Cigarettes, take out, lottery tickets, and Dove soap. I actually did scream when he had to have a new down blanket. Especially since he already had one sitting in the spare room waiting for my sister to visit.

Nice post. It’s easy to forget that other people have it tougher than you, and they still get along.

What shocked me the other day was someone I always thought was a really high-paid person earns just over half what I do. Yet they are – financially speaking – more successful than me, because they have the financial smarts.

So it’s good to be reminded that, however mucha struggle it is, it can be done. After all, if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got!

Like you, I am also from a country where I was thankful to earn $300 a month after graduating from college. Being female, I set the limit to $100 rent monthly for a studio unit instead of the cheaper ones because I had to consider my safety. That left me with $200 a month to work with. That already went to food and transportation alone. I slept on the floor, lived with my laptop alone, ate noodles almost everyday. And I still had nothing left over for savings.

Only way I am able to save is to manage my career well, learn to juggle two to three jobs, and continue living below my means.

I know what you mean When I was still in college my then-boyfriend an I rented a cheap apartment. The “bed” was so wobbly and full of badly hammered nails we decided to dissemble it. We put the matresses directly on the floor and slept there

But this was just a phase in our lives, just like your current struggle is a phase in yours – it is not forever.

What a good article. I remember after the divorce my daughter and I had a credit card with $7,000. on it because we did not have enough money to pay for groceries, and gas. Over time even though at the poverty level we paid this amount off. Never again did we have a credit card that we charged more than what we could pay when the bill came.
Years have passed now. I need to retire for many reasons and I have money saved to help me get by until social security comes. I am ever so thankful. We also have learned to be content. It seems to make others angry sometimes that we are content and enjoy life just the way it is. Referring back to your article we also encounter many people who believe saving is impossible and believe that someone must be giving us money to make it possible. Potatoes and eggs made me smile. Often that is what we had and with a little salt and pepper it was delicious!

Great post! Thanks so much for sharing your story. It’s true that most Americans struggle on a higher level than those in other countries. Even when I considered myself flat broke, I still had things that some people couldn’t dream of having. This has given me some new perspective.

I enjoyed reading this story. Rya, you’re an inspriation! Like you said, it helps a lot to hear people say, “I did this, and you can too.”

I think that no matter what our neighbors’ standard of living is, it’s hard not to try to equal (or just slightly exceed) it. The person who decides not to replace their old beater car can, in many ways, experience the same feelings as a person who opts to bicycle when all their friends take a bus.

One of the best things I have done for my finances is move to a small town where the average income is about equal to mine. A few years ago, my income was a good deal lower than that of most of my friends. Today, my local friends mostly earn less than I do. So we ALL potluck instead of going to restaurants, play board games and rent movies instead of going out, and shop at Goodwill. I don’t think any of us pay for cable.

This makes it so much easier to live within my means. I don’t *want* to spend money on display or luxuries, because that would be embarrassing. I guess my point is that the biggest struggle is not to live beneath one’s own means, but to live beneath one’s *neighbors’* means.

I was just struggling with my budget for the month. I’m trying to keep spending down to $450 a WEEK for my family of three; that doesn’t even include mortgage, utilities, insurance and childcare (which I’ve already accounted for). Then I read this article. Now I’m so embarrassed by my own excess. I usually have about a 50-50 chance of overspending my budget, but not this time. This month I will be thinking of Rya. Thanks for a great article.

Great article. Love the perspective from another country. In Debtors Anonymous there’s a saying that goes something like “We will live within our means but our means will not define us.” I think that’s the point of this story and a wonderful inspiration for me today (and, God willing, the rest of the week). Thanks again.

Awesome perspective on saving from a non-American perspective. Too often we are normalized to the conditions closer to home, but it is great to see that the basics apply no matter where you live. Thanks for this post!

“I used to be just like that. I would speak to someone with better financial sense than me, and they’d generously tell me what I needed to do. But I didn’t like it. It sounded like too much work. It sounded like change. It sounded like less fun.”

Yep, guilty as charged… Thanks for helping to kick some sense into me.

I haven’t commented here in a long time because I couldn’t stand the people who call me a liar because they refuse to believe I can amass the net worth of someone twice my age without a rich relative dying and leaving me a sizable estate.

But, Rya, I have to say I LOVE your story and philosophy, which I wholeheartedly share.

This is right on. I used to feel like I didn’t have enough money to save anything. I finally took a hard look at what I was spending and found ways to cut. $100 limit on groceries per month, $80 limit on gas for the car per month, no cable, generic items only, I haven’t bought new clothes or shoes in a year, I do not spend money on frivolous things. I am now able to save $300 per month and put it towards different savings goals (travel, emergency fund, home repairs). Not buying into the typical American materialistic way of life has been a breath of fresh air!

For anyone wanting to read Rya’s blog in English, Google Chrome will translate it from Bulgarian. The grammar may be a bit wonky as with most translation, but you’ll at least get the general idea of what she’s saying.

I love this idea! I’ll see what I can do to make it happen. What would help, of course, is for readers from other countries to contribute their stories. I’ll actively recruit people, too, but if you live outside the U.S. and want to share your personal-finance perspective, please drop me a line.

Also, as I prepare reader stories in the coming months, I’ll try to prioritize non-U.S. perspectives. I don’t want to make these overwhelming, though, so I’m guessing a pace of about once per month — if I can get enough material.

ex. It’s very difficult to go out to dinner with a group of your friends who buy appetizers, main courses, desert and share a bottle of wine…and you order just a main course and refrain from sharing any of the other food or wine, because you want to keep under your nightly budget limit of $15 or whatever. It gets…embarrassing.

Other people might have trouble going out with their friends who are all well-dressed and you are wearing a lovely but well-mended dress they have seen you wear many times before.

Or if all your friends send their kids to private/religious school and you send your kids to public school…that can be very hard in some communities, even if the public schools are fine.

I think that’s what people REALLY mean when they say “keeping up with the neighbors”.

Very nice story – thanks for sharing! I liked hearing a viewpoint from outside the US. Something that stands out is how it is perceived that Americans can afford all the niceties mentioned in the articel. the real truth is that most can’t – they just charge everything and don’t save either. Seems people everywhere just don’t make savng a priority.

It’s really fascinating to compare different attitudes toward money, finances, and savings in different countries. I’m an American but have lived in Austria, a wealthy country by GDP measures. My spending habits were completely different there, and not just because I was a foreigner living abroad; my spending priorities and how money fit into the experience of living there was completely different. In general, I found Europeans smarter about their spending habits than Americans–sorry if that offends anyone, but it is nonetheless my perception. I’d love to see more articles that explore this on GRS. Maybe we can learn a little from other countries.

Rya, I think you’ve just given me a kick in the pants – I can be doing more to control my costs than I am now. Thank you.

I, too, found this post from outside the U.S. refreshing and enlightening. I’ve traveled, lived abroad, and seen great poverty – but it’s been a long time and the lessons have faded. This middle-class American is finding herself to be a bit of a financial wimp remembering how easy I have it compared to most of the world.

Rya, thank you for sharing your story with us! It’s great to gain some perspective from those not living in a rich western country (or expat’ing from a rich country).

It sounds like you managed to pay off your debt in full. Did you manage to find a job in Sophia or did you move back? Or is your blog successfull enough to make it your full time job?

Also, I’m curious: does Bulgaria have any sort of unemployment insurance? You mention that Americans are “on their own” when a financial crisis happens, and that’s not entirely true: We do have welfare, social security and medicaid, which provide a substantial financial safety net for those who lose work or are chronically disabled. Although it’s not luxury by any means, it can be a major help for those deeply in need.

@FiveSigmas – yes, my debt was paid out in full on March 2nd 2010 – incidently, just a day before our National holiday March 3rd, Independance day. This year I celebrated March 3rd as our National Independance day and my personal financial independance day

I could have found a job back in Sofia but I decided to move back to my hometown. This decision was based on personal motives and it had nothing to do with my money issues.

Yes, we also have unemployment money here but at the time I couldn’t apply.

Rya, it’s always fun to read another perspective. Seeing how I live in relation to someone from a completely different country opens my eyes.

I’m doing things that are frugal that I’ve never done in my life, and yet I realize there are many more things I could do.

My understanding is that most of the world lives on less than $3/day. I congratulate myself in that I get my daily sandwich for $5, when others are paying $10.

I really could live on a lot less, and I think it would be fun to try to see how little I could get by on, and still be happy. Ride bike to the store instead of car, cook beans and rice instead of $25 meal. There are so many ways I can still cut back, and I don’t think it would hurt one bit.

Really enjoyable article to read! I wish your blog was in English so that we could read it Made me realize that I don’t have it so bad. If I need extra money, there’s a million grocery stores, drug stores, and malls within 10 minutes of me where I can get a part-time job. It doesn’t sound like you guys have that luxury in Bulgaria.

Thanks for the great article. However, I have a comment about your examples of the poor in the U.S. There are government programs available to help people in these situations.

My friend who is in her 3rd trimester of pregnancy was complaining that she and her husband were sick of eating fish (free because they’d caught it the summer before). They couldn’t afford groceries. I suggested food stamps. She walked in, gave them her completed application and the card loaded with money was in her mailbox less than a week later.

She found out she can also apply for WIC and energy assistance although she hasn’t gotten to it yet. The whole family will qualify for Medicaid once the baby is born.

At her baby shower yesterday (where well-meaning but apparently idiot friends bought tons of clothes size 0-3 months from 8 different stores with no receipts and didn’t fulfill her registy request for cloth diapers) one of the other mom’s mentioned that she doesn’t need to buy a breastpump (which wasn’t purchased off her registry anyway) because the WIC program has high quality ones you can borrow.

That might be a difference between Bulgarian and American sob stories. Americans may not be making use of available assistance while there may be no available assistance in Bulgaria.

One minor correction: SOME Americans can afford a home mortgage, a car loan, and student loans totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars and still live in a well-furnished home while not worry about food or bills.

For many of us, “saving doesn’t come easily. It usually means cutting back on basic things like food, clothes, and transportation.” Yes. Even in America.

It’s not about SAVING money. It’s about being able to ACQUIRE the money needed to purchase things, be they necessity or luxury. Savings only last so long before they run out, because it is impossible to live in a “civilized” country according to civilized standards (even low ones) without spending a single dime.

Save well–or rather, behave economically–but do your best to EARN more. Keep the flow going, rather than the coffers filled, and the coffers will fill themselves.

JB, of course you’re right. I didn’t say all americans had it easy, in fact what I said was “I’ve also learned — through reading blog posts and comments — that not all Americans have it easy. I’ve read some strong personal stories from Americans who seemed to be in even worse situations than mine:”

But, I’m hungry for more. To be honest I felt that there was info missing (only because Rya’s story was so compelling!)

What were the logistics once Rya moved back to her hometown? Did she move in with her parents? Did her family crisis get resolved? Did she share a flat? Is she still living at home? Did she get a new job? Did it pay as much as her old job in Sofia?

How did she manage that amazing payoff on her new salary?

Rya, best of luck to you!

PS I assume that her new job in her hometown would be paying less than her old job in Sofia, but of course that is just an assumption.

In her “about me” section, she says she currently has a full-time job (her career is in HR and sales) and volunteers for a folk dancing group after work. I only glanced at her blog quickly, but it looks like she gives advice and how-tos for different areas of personal finance rather than give an account of her own situation.

Rya,
I just had to read this post the minute I saw the title–I am a Bulgarian living in the States. You make great points about the perceptions people back home have about the US and other Western countries with higher standards of living and how sometimes they turn the fact that Bulgaria is “poorer” into excuses. Also a lot of people back home don’t realize that a lot of the housing, possessions, and education in the US is paid via debt. It’s great that you write about personal finance in Bulgaria. Good luck with your blog!

This is such a great post, especially for other young people. While I do enjoy reading posts from older, more experienced individuals, it is really nice to hear from someone who is in a situation that is closer to mine. I think Rya is right about changing your thinking and attitude. It’s so much easier to complain about what you can’t afford than it is to actually do something about it like get a second job or cut back on some luxuries. I have a hard time taking someone seriously if they say they’re poor but they live in a decent house and have an expensive cable package.

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